A USC Marshall School of Business study that shows rudeness in the workplace hurts creativity and helpfulness on the job was featured in a recent issue of Harvard Business Review.

The study, conducted by Christine Porath, an assistant professor at USC and Amir Erez, a professor at the University of Florida, showed that the mere thought of being verbally abused hurts people’s ability to perform complex tasks requiring creativity, flexibility and memory recall.

The researchers set up three live experimental situations which tested the effects of three forms of exposure to rudeness involving separate groups of university students.

In one study, harsh words were directed at participants by a researcher, in another rude remarks came from someone outside the study, and in a third study, the participants were asked to imagine rude incidents happening to them.

In all three cases, participants’ ability to perform tasks using their problem solving ability and creativity were impaired.

“We found that participants who experienced incivility were 30 percent less creative, produced 25 percent fewer ideas and their ideas were less diverse,” Porath said. “Those treated with rudeness also recalled nearly 20 percent less.”

The study also showed that when people are treated in an uncivil manner, their inclination to assist others also declined.

In the first study, where no incivility had occurred, 90 percent of participants helped pick up something that had been intentionally dropped. That number decreased to 35 percent when the participants experienced rudeness. Willingness to help dropped in the researchers subsequent situations as well.

In her research, Porath has found incivility across all industries but especially in intense and fast-paced industries such as investment banking. “There are no safe havens,” she said.

What’s more, over the years Porath has found that the statistics are increasing.

When Porath began her research 10 years ago, 20 percent of the workers she surveyed were witnessing incidents of incivility once a week. Today, that number has increased to 40 percent who observe these incidents twice weekly.

“It’s eye-opening and saddening,” said Porath, who teaches students about incivility in the workplace through a negotiating class in the MBA PM program, the Executive Leadership Program and a course in the Masters of Medical Management program.

“There are detrimental effects for those in the organization, but (it) also hits the organization’s bottom line,” she said.

In searching for the reasons for workplace rudeness, there are a few possibilities, including work overload.

“We’ve asked and collected survey data,” she said. “Fifty percent say they don’t have time to be nice and more than 25 percent point to lack of training. A lot of people fault the organization and others point to leaders as role models and that the person in charge of the organization sets the tone and when the organization tolerates incivility, it’s problematic.”

The good news, Porath added, is that companies are paying more attention.

“When we started out nearly a decade ago, we had to shake mangers to get them to pay attention, and now it feels like it’s an easier sell. We have a better argument now, with numbers to back it up.”

Cisco Systems used some of this research to figure out how much incivility was hurting its bottom line and eventually designed a global civility program. Other companies that have started correcting for incivility include Starbucks and Microsoft.

Porath is compiling her years of research into It Pays to Be Civil: How Incivility Ruins Your Business and What You Can Do About It, a book co-written with USC Ph.D. Christine Pearson. It will be published next spring.

Porath is also working on two studies with USC Marshall marketing professors Deborah McGuinness and Valerie Folkes that examine the effects of witnessing incivility as a bystander.